We Journey in Search of Difference
Just before we leave, in the silence when our bags are packed and our boarding passes are visible on our phones, a more potent urge is calling us. We don’t go around the world merely to see all the sights or to get away from the routine. What we really want is to see something totally different: the very different, even the somewhat uncomfortable, contrast that shocks our senses, makes us question our beliefs, and silently changes the story we give ourselves about the world and our place in it.
Understanding Our Intrinsic Yearning for the New
The urge to go to new places and see new things has been an inherent quality of human nature. Just like the desert traders of old were on the move for the acquisition of spices and also for the hearing of stories, in a very similar way modern explorers are going up in planes in search of that very same spark – for instance, the scent of unfamiliar spices in a night market, the cadence of a language which one cannot understand, the surprising kindness of a stranger in a remote setting. We don’t consider the differences as mere ornaments; rather, we see them as a source of nourishment. They be a reminder that our way of life is only one of many and that the world is so vast and varied that it cannot be contained by any single culture.
When sameness doesn’t work
Yet, the travel supporting technologies -big brands worldwide, algorithmic recommendations, polished travel-beauty- also usually lead to the decline of the very difference we desire. Sometimes we arrive at a very distant city and go to the same coffee-shop chain as the one we had back home. We are in Lisbon or Kyoto, but we see the same image on Instagram. This kind of unintentional similarity can definitely produce an emptiness, as if we had never left the familiar path. Because of this, the traveler who truly desires the difference should be deliberate: in choosing the slow roads, small places, and the moments when the local life still keeps on its own particular rhythm.
Difference as a Mirror and a Guide
When we come across lifestyles that are foreign to ours cultures for example, which emphasize community rather than individualism, or societies which live by seasons instead of calendars, we are forced to reflect on ourselves. What we regarded as natural or the best may simply be one of the many alternatives. This encounter brings about a mixture of humility and empathy. We begin to see that someone else’s “normal” is equally valid as ours. In fact, this subtle broadening of our outlook is among the most precious souvenirs of travel.
The bravery to experience the resistance
True change rarely happens in an easy or straightforward way. It calls for us to stumble through conversations using fragments of speech, to try foods whose textures surprise us, to experience the slightly uncomfortable feeling of not quite fitting in. Still, it is through these little bits of tension that real change happens. Those travelers who sacrifice the comfort of the familiar for the discovery of the unknown come back with a softer assurance and a keener interest. Easy comfort is everywhere; deep and true meaning However is quite often out of reach.
In fact, a very good summary of this quest is given by the French author Marcel Proust who said that a real discovery journey is not going to new places, but rather seeing with new eyes. Traveling in the quest of difference is exactly the practice of that capacity. We start seeing more clearly the delicate fabric of our own environment: the ways in which neighbors interact, the times of year that were linked to certain activities or ceremonies, but which we have stopped noticing. Foreignness, the very thing that puzzles us, also opens our eyes to the specialness of home and liberates us from the mistaken notion that our way is the only or the best way.
Taking the Difference Forward
The best souvenirs are often those you don’t physically see. A word dropped at the dinner table, a glance exchanged during a silent moment, a gift given without any suggestion of return, these bits and pieces become the strands weaved into the fabric of our everyday lives. Gradually, we grow to accept the unknown, we take an interest in those perspectives that are different from our own, and we become determined to preserve the diversity which actually makes our world a delight to explore. In a world that celebrates uniformity, those who door at differences are the silent keepers of marvel and insight.
People don’t travel to run away from their problems, they travel to discover the greater and wiser self. The road calls the ones who are ready to break away from what is familiar and allow the world with all its lovely differences to perform its quiet enchantment upon them.
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